Tag: 2010s

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2010: #7 Stars “Dead hearts”

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In my post on “Fixed” (Stars other appearance on this particular list at #20), I wrote about my mad search to find a physical CD copy of the band’s fifth album, “The five ghosts”, on the day of its release. If you’ve already read that piece and forgot what I wrote, I’ll save you the trip back and let you know that I finally found a copy. “Dead hearts” was the first song I heard when I put the disc in my car’s player for the trip back home afterwards. I fell in love with it immediately, which set the tone for the rest of the album for me. It is also why it is ranked so high on this list, despite never being released as a single.

Quite a lovely track, albeit a haunting one. The gentle jingling guitars, the lonely tinkling piano, the string explosion, and Torquil Campbell’s and Amy Milan’s boy/girl, push/pull harmonies all call to mind a fantastical world of a creative child’s imagination. I’m thinking Never-Never land territory here, a dimension where logic and reality hold no truck. The idea of ‘dead hearts’ for me is an extension of the lyric in Arcade Fire’s “Wake up” that talks about children’s hearts getting torn up as they get older and bigger, which in turn seems to be a reference to Ally Sheedy’s line in “The Breakfast Club”: “When you grow up, your heart dies.”

So through all the mists and softness of the song, I see a group of children huddled around an impossibly massive bonfire while fireflies flit about in the sky around them. The curiosity of the younger ones full to bursting, breathlessly asking questions of their leader, the elder child that has been out and has experienced the bad old world. “Tell me everything that happened.” “Tell me everything you saw.” His news isn’t good. But maybe it’s a warning with a side of hope. .

Yeah. The lines “Dead hearts are everywhere” and “They were kids that I once knew” sound to me like Stars are hedging towards hope. And that sounds beautiful to me.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2010: #8 Future Islands “Walking through that door”

<< #9    |    #7 >>

About a month or so ago, I had a discussion with fellow blogger Danica Piche over at Living a Beautiful Life about Bob Dylan in the comment sections of one our posts and she asked me which bands I had gained a better appreciation for after seeing them live. At the time, I mentioned Cake as the first band that came to mind (Don’t laugh. They put on a great show.) but said there were certainly many others. After further reflection, Baltimore-based synthpop trio, Future Islands would be an even better example.

I came upon their work rather haphazardly with their 2010 sophomore album, “in evening air”, finding it a rather fascinating sound. I remember describing it to friends as ‘Tom Waits gone synth pop’. Then, I paid them only mild attention through the release of another album (2011’s “On the water”) before they released their critically acclaimed fourth album, “Singles”, in 2014. But it wasn’t until I saw them perform live a year later at Ottawa Bluesfest that I really ‘got’ them. Frontman, Samuel T Herring really puts everything he has into his performance. It’s all passion and raw energy, as if each show he performed was the one he wanted to be remembered for. And that night, the skies unleashed a torrent of rain during their set but the band refused to concede to it, as long as the crowd was willing to dance. I went home afterwards and immediately put on their album, even before peeling off my soaked clothing, and you can bet it sounded different to me.

“Walking through that door” is one of my first run ins with the band, being the first track off their 2010 album. It was one of the few tracks that has stuck with me from the beginning and was a revelation performed live. The heavy bass drum machine that provides the song’s backbone becomes fireworks at the hands of the touring drummer. The squealing organ synths dances through your soul, never minding any such door. And Herring, whose growl in the recording can be heard just treading water above the synths, is a force when live, the man kneeling and pleading, banging his fists on his chest, urging the listener to stay with him, through sunshine and rain, through happiness and pain. The frontman leaves the stage every night soaked in sweat, voice raw, and exhausted, giving us his all. And if you listen to this song closely enough, I’m sure as hell that you can hear it.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: First Aid Kit “Stay gold”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: First Aid Kit
Album Title: Stay gold
Year released: 2014
Details: Limited edition, translucent gold vinyl, Gatefold

The skinny: I was leery about purchasing the Söderberg sisters’ (aka First Aid Kit) third album on vinyl because I was worried that their transition to the major label world would push them too deep into pop territory for my tastes. Happily, my fears were unwarranted and instead we had more of the same lovely harmonies found on “The lion’s roar“, only with more musician support and a crisper production. Album #4, “Ruins”, is due out in two days.

Standout track: “My silver lining”